Best Chinaman bowlers in Test Cricket

[Cricketismylife]

Who are the best chinaman bowlers in the history of test cricket? Apart from Sobers I can't think of many. Paul Adams was a left arm wrist spinner but turned the ball away from the right handed batsman as his main delivery, so wasn't technically a chinaman.

 

[Mark68]

Michael Bevan and Brad Hogg?? Although Hogg took over 150 wickets in ODI's rather than Tests.

Bevan was a good bowler and pushed them through. He troubled the Saffers didn't he? He took over 30 wickets in Tests though.

Going right back you have Chuck Fleetwood-Smith apparently a very good bowler but was faced with much competition.

 

[fredfertang]

Johnny Wardle bowled wrist spin to great effect in South Africa in 1956/57 which, as Denis Compton played in that series as well, meant that England had a pair of them

 

[Furball]

Statistically it's Katich isn't it?

I'm sure I've looked this up and Katich is up there statistically with anyone.

 

[Mark68]

Johnny Wardle bowled wrist spin to great effect in South Africa in 1956/57 which, as Denis Compton played in that series as well, meant that England had a pair of them

If Dennis Compton was a chinaman bowler then i am a Dutchman....

 

[fredfertang]

If Dennis Compton was a chinaman bowler then i am a Dutchman....

I'm sure you look good in an orange suit

 

[Prince EWS]

Statistically it's Katich isn't it?

I'm sure I've looked this up and Katich is up there statistically with anyone.

Paul Adams is pretty comfortably the best left arm wrist spinner statistically, but as pointed out his stock ball turned away from the RHB so I'm not sure if he really counts. Beyond that, Fleetwood-Smith has the next most wickets (42w @ 37), followed by Lindsay Kline (34w @ 22), Michael Bevan (29w @ 24), Denis Compton (26w @ 56) and then Katich (21w @ 30).

I think you'd have to give the title to Kline based on that, especially since he was employed as a frontline, specialist bowler during his career.

 

[Furball]

Turns out I was getting Katich's wickets and average the wrong way round then.

 

[uvelocity]

its funny that there haven't been more. can't think there would be any reason for the method to be any less successful than leggies or offies, and even more so with the abundance of lhb's around these days

 

[Furball]

its funny that there haven't been more. can't think there would be any reason for the method to be any less successful than leggies or offies, and even more so with the abundance of lhb's around these days

Well, there's been what, 6 or 7 really good leggies in the history of the game? Considering that us lefties only make up 1 in 10 of the population, it's not really that remarkable that there hasn't been a great chinaman bowler.

There's other reasons as well, Top_Cat (IIRC) made a post a while ago that explained why chinaman bowling was more difficult than being a leggie.

 

[NUFAN]

Turns out I was getting Katich's wickets and average the wrong way round then.

I made the same mistake with McGrath once. Couldn't believe people were including a pedestrian bowler averaging 563 with the ball in their all time team.

 

[uvelocity]

here's top ****s post

Left-arm wristies aren't closely analogous to right-arm offies at higher levels, mainly because they have fewer effective options to keep a bat on strike for a decent period of time which, really, is what matters against guys who can bat. Even if the bloke is getting massive turn, you know a loose one is coming soon but a bigger factor is that you get a really good look at the line of the ball with a leftie wrist-spinner bowling over the wicket. So you can look to tuck away just about anything with low risk and knowing which ones to leave is pretty obvious because the bowler has to pitch them so wide to stop this. This applies double if they bowl around the wicket. A wrong'un won't save the bowler either because the line means it's a relatively easy decision for a batsman to decide whether to milk or leave the ball.

Big turn and tricks aren't everything at higher levels and blokes who rip a ball square are a dime-a-dozen at all levels. It wasn't Murali's bag of tricks that got so many bats out, it was the fairly relentless pressure he applied because batters knew they'd be facing him all day and that he had more subtle crease and line variations available to him so you can put more guys on the off-side. Left-arm wristies never have that luxury and rarely one of an attacking off-side field so facing them is fairly simple in the end; smash the more frequent loose offerings, work them away if they do land a ball and leave the clearly wide ones.

i dont know if any of that is any different to leggies bowling to lefties tbh

 

[Prince EWS]

here's top ****s post



i dont know if any of that is any different to leggies bowling to lefties tbh

It's not really, but lefties are a lot rarer at youth and lower levels of cricket where players first decide what it is they're going to bowl. If you're left handed and 70%+ of opposition players bat right handed then deciding to work on your wrist spin is basically a detriment to the team you're playing in, will make life much harder for you as a bowler and will be less effective than bowling orthodox spin to the same standard despite being much more difficult to master. Left handed batsmen are a little more common at Test level but that's not really what you're thinking about when you're ten years old; you just want the captain to give you a bowl. Even if you can bowl both when you get a bit older, orthodox spin is going to get you the figures you need to gain rep selection etc.

 

[the big bambino]

Jack Walsh could have been a good one. Played most of his career as a pro in England.

 

[KiWiNiNjA]

I tried left-arm wristies for a while there, but realised I got better results with my right-arm.

 

[uvelocity]

you probably werent gripping it hard enough

 

[Maximas]

you probably werent gripping it hard enough

Shane Warne recommends a loose grip ftr

 

[OverratedSanity]

I tried left-arm wristies for a while there, but realised I got better results with my right-arm.

you probably werent gripping it hard enough

Shane Warne recommends a loose grip ftr

Atleast use a smiley FFS. Can't tell if you guys are serious or not

 

[NZTailender]

Counting the posts until benchmark makes an appearence

 

[uvelocity]

how many you up to so far?